If you wanted to split hairs and exaggerate narrative emphasis you could potentially argue that 'Teen Drama' existed in Final Fantasy long before VIII was even conceived. Take Terra for example, now granted it's been forever and a day since I played the game so I can't string the analogy together as well as I'd like; but you could sum up the entire near first half of FF VI's 'plot driving force' as dealing with Terra's teenage issues, some in analogy and some directly. (Adoption, dealing with 'physical changes during her coming of age' by equating the esper body/powers to hitting puberty, ect.)

Heck the entire freaking party has to go clopping across the globe because their teenage member freaked over how she looked in the mirror and 'ran away from home'. (Again to note; just describing what happens with the right spin to make a point rather than saying that's literally the plot. XD )

I'm not going to lie and say that there isn't anything wrong with FFVI (Thasama REALLY needed to be located closer to the middle of the WoB rather than at the tail end of it) but for the most part its lack of a definitive main character really helps it out (by which I mean nobody's permanently welded into the party leader position like in there is in most JRPGs; probably to try to hide the fact that the 'main' character is a grrl which continues to be an incredibly rare occurrence, especially when not treated in a derogatory manner ala Neptunia and the like). Instead you basically have free reign over your party load out for most of the game (outside of events where everybody's scattered across the globe) so if you got tired of Terra's pursuit to understand the virtues of becoming the perfect Japanese housewife you could dump her ass and spend some time hanging with Mr. 'Suplexed A Motherfucking Train' Sabin, Mr. 'Imagine Me Breaking This Game Over My Knee. Forever' Edgar, Mr. 'Oh I'm Sorry. Were You Wearing That?' Locke, and Mr. 'Thou' Cyan.

And FFVIII's biggest problem isn't that the melodrama is awful (although that is among the biggest problems) but that FFVIII focuses so excessively over its awful melodrama that it lets it take over the whole shebang. What little non romantic side plot plot there is is horribly fragmented and discombobulated and basically serves no purpose outside of giving Squall a backdrop to protagonist on. You can basically cut the game up along its disks and have four completely different games' worth of plot with almost no overlap whatsoever (and five if you remove Lagoona from the equation) and even then they're filled with plotholes and nonsense that make no sense beyond being something for Squall to do in a dramatic way to make himself look good.

FFX's biggest problem was that you were on this supposed 'death march' that either dominated the plot or was just as quickly forgotten by it with no real middle ground. Also that the 'death march' was completely unnecessary since the way to make everything better once and for all was to not do the exact same thing everybody else did for the past 10000 years. Although I guess it still was a 'death march' in the sense that you were marching ghosts up through Japanthe hallway the world. Also Seymour sucked and is the second worst antagonist in a main line FF game, beaten only by XIII's "Go powerlevel on Namek/in my Hyperbolic Time Hallway before you even think to thrash me again!" Space Pope (note: this does not include sequels, compilation titles, spinoffs, and what have you as they would love to have a villain as good, interesting, and well developed as Seymour).

・Something "different" about Agni's Philosophy will be shown in June 2013 (E3?), on "something other than PC". Based on the guy's smile, it's clearly next-gen platforms.

・Lightning Returns: Development is quite advanced, they're currently showing it to focus groups to find out which element they should concentrate on to please fans. Also, he said that on a technological level, Versus XIII elements were used for this game. It will keep some elements from FFXIII/XIII-2 but will be quite different from every FF that's come out so far.

・Type-0: No plan as of now, but they'd like to localize it eventually.

・Versus XIII: Definitely still in development. The project is very, very ambitious according to this guy, and that is why it's taken so long. He says once the project will be fully revealed, people will be happy to have waited so long. Also, Yoichi Wada is determined to push the development team as far as they can.

・FF XIV: He praises Yoshida's direction of the project, says it will be "quite different" from the original FFXIV. He also says that people from S-E outside of Japan also believe in the project, that it's not a "Japan-only" thing (whatever that means).

I'm not going to lie and say that there isn't anything wrong with FFVI (Thasama REALLY needed to be located closer to the middle of the WoB rather than at the tail end of it) but for the most part its lack of a definitive main character really helps it out (by which I mean nobody's permanently welded into the party leader position like in there is in most JRPGs; probably to try to hide the fact that the 'main' character is a grrl which continues to be an incredibly rare occurrence, especially when not treated in a derogatory manner ala Neptunia and the like). Instead you basically have free reign over your party load out for most of the game (outside of events where everybody's scattered across the globe) so if you got tired of Terra's pursuit to understand the virtues of becoming the perfect Japanese housewife you could dump her ass and spend some time hanging with Mr. 'Suplexed A Motherfucking Train' Sabin, Mr. 'Imagine Me Breaking This Game Over My Knee. Forever' Edgar, Mr. 'Oh I'm Sorry. Were You Wearing That?' Locke, and Mr. 'Thou' Cyan.

Strange, I always thought Celes was the main character. Well, I guess that's the beauty of it, it's one of the few, if only, RPGs that's definitely a full cast story. Final Fantasy games often have very strong central casts though: FF7, FF9, FFX, and FFXII all have some ambiguity over the lead, even if they feature an iconic young male hero. But FF6 is the only one where it's completely ambiguous.

Really, the only claim Terra has to being lead is the fact that the game begins with her. From there, she becomes part of the team. As the game progresses, she becomes more distant, and leaves for hours at a time. It becomes more "about her" then "from her perspective", while others take the reigns. Locke always remains a strong second, but always second, and second to who? For the middle third, it felt like Celes took over for Terra (which has some out-of-game significance, since they were originally the same character during development). Then, in the second half, it's COMPLETELY thrust into Celes' hands, while Terra & Locke are the dead last characters to rejoin the party.

As for Terra's story, I rather liked what they did. They originally set her up as some sort of romanic lead, being female alongside a male hero, and questioning her ability to love. But they did a 180 and instead of going for the easy romantic epiphany, she learns to "love" a group of children that she cares for. I thought that was pretty big of them. Actually, kinda opposite of the "perfect Japanese housewife"... it's closer to her becoming a nun. There's a slight hint of romance between Locke and Celes, and maybe a tinge between Edgar and Terra, by virtue of him being a horny bastard, but any romance tends to hinge more around exploring the characters' troubled past than trying to create some titillating love train. By the end, you see Locke as a broken, but recovering character who has a long way to go before any thought of romance is even possible. Characters are left happy, but the ending doesn't bring everyone together or set them up for "happily ever after".

I'm not going to lie and say that there isn't anything wrong with FFVI (Thasama REALLY needed to be located closer to the middle of the WoB rather than at the tail end of it) but for the most part its lack of a definitive main character really helps it out (by which I mean nobody's permanently welded into the party leader position like in there is in most JRPGs; probably to try to hide the fact that the 'main' character is a grrl which continues to be an incredibly rare occurrence, especially when not treated in a derogatory manner ala Neptunia and the like). Instead you basically have free reign over your party load out for most of the game (outside of events where everybody's scattered across the globe) so if you got tired of Terra's pursuit to understand the virtues of becoming the perfect Japanese housewife you could dump her ass and spend some time hanging with Mr. 'Suplexed A Motherfucking Train' Sabin, Mr. 'Imagine Me Breaking This Game Over My Knee. Forever' Edgar, Mr. 'Oh I'm Sorry. Were You Wearing That?' Locke, and Mr. 'Thou' Cyan.

Strange, I always thought Celes was the main character. Well, I guess that's the beauty of it, it's one of the few, if only, RPGs that's definitely a full cast story. Final Fantasy games often have very strong central casts though: FF7, FF9, FFX, and FFXII all have some ambiguity over the lead, even if they feature an iconic young male hero. But FF6 is the only one where it's completely ambiguous.

Really, the only claim Terra has to being lead is the fact that the game begins with her. From there, she becomes part of the team. As the game progresses, she becomes more distant, and leaves for hours at a time. It becomes more "about her" then "from her perspective", while others take the reigns. Locke always remains a strong second, but always second, and second to who? For the middle third, it felt like Celes took over for Terra (which has some out-of-game significance, since they were originally the same character during development). Then, in the second half, it's COMPLETELY thrust into Celes' hands, while Terra & Locke are the dead last characters to rejoin the party.

As for Terra's story, I rather liked what they did. They originally set her up as some sort of romanic lead, being female alongside a male hero, and questioning her ability to love. But they did a 180 and instead of going for the easy romantic epiphany, she learns to "love" a group of children that she cares for. I thought that was pretty big of them. Actually, kinda opposite of the "perfect Japanese housewife"... it's closer to her becoming a nun. There's a slight hint of romance between Locke and Celes, and maybe a tinge between Edgar and Terra, by virtue of him being a horny bastard, but any romance tends to hinge more around exploring the characters' troubled past than trying to create some titillating love train. By the end, you see Locke as a broken, but recovering character who has a long way to go before any thought of romance is even possible. Characters are left happy, but the ending doesn't bring everyone together or set them up for "happily ever after".

My god, what a perfect game.

Originally Terra (or Tina in Japan) and Celes were the same character before they were split into the two they are now. In fact their names reflect this as Celestina was a reference to the name of an old Spanish(?) romance novel. Also both female leads spend large stretches of time plot incapacitated during the WoB segment (as Celes gets knocked out of the plot near the end of the Magitek Factory sequence, doesn't really show up until the awkward Crescent Island sequence, and doesn't properly join up again until you're making your escape from the Floating Continent).

Plus both Locke and Terra can join as soon as you retrieve the Falcon just like everybody who isn't named Celes, Edgar, Setzer, Sabin (provided you bothered with Tzen beforehand), Shadow (provided you didn't wait for him during the escape from Witch Mountain the Floating Continent), Strago (needs Relm to rerecruit him), or Umaro (needs Mog to recruit him), although the plot directs you towards Cyan as soon as you first take off, and you might have stumbled across Terra if you took the detour down Serpent's Trench instead of up it, plus you might get your ass kicked if you try taking on the Phoenix Cave right after getting the Falcon (also the plot doesn't really point you towards it unless you find the hidden letter at Owser's Manor). But what really cinches it is that Celes can be replaced by a crappy Moogle named Kutan (also Terra will force herself into the ending sequence regardless as to whether you recruited her or not).

"The Lightning Returns Facebook and Twitter accounts have seen recaps over this past week on topics such as battle customization, time elements, and even day and night cycles.

Today, producer Yoshinori Kitase spoke up for the first time in quite a while, providing a little insight on where Lightning Returns is currently headed, as well as when we can expect some new information.

Kitase says that the development team has reached its one big milestone. The first part of the game has been implemented to some extent, and the team staff have been collecting playtest feedback. Using that feedback, the team hopes to strengthen the game. They'll repeat this several times over in order to polish the quality of the final product.

While development is progressing well, Kitase stresses that we'll have to wait a little while longer for more information.

LRFFXIII was 30% complete as of September and is scheduled for release sometime in 2013."

And FFVIII's biggest problem isn't that the melodrama is awful (although that is among the biggest problems) but that FFVIII focuses so excessively over its awful melodrama that it lets it take over the whole shebang. What little non romantic side plot plot there is is horribly fragmented and discombobulated and basically serves no purpose outside of giving Squall a backdrop to protagonist on. You can basically cut the game up along its disks and have four completely different games' worth of plot with almost no overlap whatsoever (and five if you remove Lagoona from the equation) and even then they're filled with plotholes and nonsense that make no sense beyond being something for Squall to do in a dramatic way to make himself look good.

I always thought it was funny that for a game 'about love', it paled in comparison to FFIX in telling a love story.

to me love stories in rpg's often feel forced or akward(sp?). and no i never beat the last boss in 9 because my ps2 laser died but to me daggar/zidane and steiner/beatrix fall into that category. also steiner/beatrix was more about them both defrosting.

Logged

“Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.”

to me love stories in rpg's often feel forced or akward(sp?). and no i never beat the last boss in 9 because my ps2 laser died but to me daggar/zidane and steiner/beatrix fall into that category. also steiner/beatrix was more about them both defrosting.

Not really... Stein and Beatrix happened purely *by accident*. They didn't like each other; it was when they thought that the other had feelings for them was when something actually happened (something that's actually....kinda realistic!).

Zidane and Dagger was cute. Dagger felt nothing at first, possibly because Zidane made it too easy. He was clearly torn when he thought he wouldn't see her again. If anything, she was more the "defroster".

Certainly all sorts of love in the game: Eiko had that childhood crush with Zidane that can never happen, and Freya had that "forever and loyal" type.